Ben Powell

Name: Benjamin J. “Ben” Powell

Gender: Male

Age: 17

Grade: 12th grade

School: Bayview Secondary School

Hobbies and Interests: Fencing, Scouts, Statistics and Maths.

Appearance: Pale and sitting in at around 130lb (60kg) and around 5.5ft (170cm), he’s skinny to the point of being underweight, although he claims to be an unhealthy eater and blames it on his metabolism. In the physical department, he has been quoted to be “more bony than a skeleton”, end quote.

Dark brown long hair covers his face almost to the point of covering his dark blue eyes. His face looks slightly pinched, to match the rest of his body, with a bit of stubble on his chin. Supports no scars or blemishes, apart from the odd pimple.

He prefers to sport a range of t-shirts to fit the situation, but mostly contingent shirts from Jamborees and Ventures overseas when it’s just casualwear. At the time of the hijack, he was lucky with his clothes, wearing his dark blue hike zip-pants ((editor: the type that you can change into shorts, and back again)), and rugged worn-out hike boots. The straight-blue t-shirt happens to be from an overseas expedition, which ironically states the slogan on the back “I escaped…”

Biography: Benjamin was born on the 7th February to Margaret and Harry Powell in Sydney, Australia. Margaret is currently a social worker, and Harry a manager for an IT software company. He also has a sister, Sarah Powell, who is now 15 and starting senior high school. Ben has a good, if not stable relationship with his family, with no major problems at home, although he regrets that his parents work from dawn till dusk 5 days a week, only really seeing each other on weekends and holidays, which they try to do regularly.

Ben is pretty much the go-to guy if you need a hand with anything. Always wanting to try something new, he tries to be as approachable as possible. He regards his friends highly. Even then, he tries to keep at least what he calls a “neutral relationship” with everybody, and doesn’t like to get into an argument. If he sees a problem, he tries to solve it in the fairest way possible, usually taking “Plan C” to new levels.

His early years he found to be quite easy, living up in the southern side of Sydney. Ben constantly strived to try new things, joining Scouts when he was 8, and doing various sports, primarily cricket and Australian Rules football. He also took up jazz and tap dancing for 2 years as part of a badge for cubs. Friends for Ben were mainly from almost opposite sides of the spectrum: both from scouting and sports and from the maths and sciences. This eventually got to the point in later years where he had to drop some of his sports in order to be able to do other things outside of school. Going up to High School, he dropped his sports to just Scouts, leaving more time with friends. In Scouts he started to get into hiking and rogaining, and eventually ended up at some of the scouting events held around Australia, being PL at the Australian Jamboree.

4 years ago, Harry Powell received an offer for a job in St. Paul. This would spark a war between the family as to whether to accept the money or stay where they were. Eventually it was agreed that they would accept, and Ben started the last stage of his youth education in Bayview Secondary High. He quickly settled in as the local scouter for the school. He quickly settled into the Venturer group there, but to this day he has not got anyone from Bayview to go there, which he views as slightly annoying. He has also returned to Australia last year for a scouting event.

For the Eagle Scout Award, the highest award receivable for a youth member, one of the badges required him to participate in a sport for 6 months. Hearing about the fencing club, he quickly tried out and started practicing with people in school and in local tournaments. His technique is very defensive, preferring to parry and allow the opponent to come to him before attacking them, which has been criticised by the coach as getting to the point where he is not taking obvious points.

Going into his senior year, he is reasonably confident in his abilities to go out into the world. He is unsure of what direction on what to take, whether to go to collage or not, although he prefers to do something referring to maths, particularly statistics. Ben is an Anglican, but usually doesn’t go to church unless woken up in time, which is usually not often. He has often been shot down by some people by his belief that there is a God of some kind, but he just hasn’t got any powers to help anyone.

Advantages: His experience in scouting has given him some very good skills, including learning how to read a map and compass, good planning skills, and hiking distances will not be a problem. He was wearing his good hiking clothes thankfully, so if he’s going to go somewhere, he’ll be there not any worse for wear. In a game like this, knowing how to work with the island is going to be a massive help. His fencing skills are fordable, being in the intermediates class at the school club. His specialty is defense, mainly parrying and blocking other people, waiting for an opening. Being taught to defend against another’s blade should come in handy. And if he gets his hands on a blade, he'll know how to use it effectively.

Disadvantages: His stamina will play a big factor in how he goes. Running exhausts him, and with a lack of food on the island to keep his energy up, he will get tired very quickly. If he's caught in a firefight or a danger-zone, he's not going to be able to just run out. Anyone who listens during school assembly will know that he could be a big threat from the get-go. Serious players will be looking out for him and wanting him out of the competition as fast as possible. He's going into this game with a massive target on his back day one. Furthermore, his experience with guns is close to zero, the most practice he has had being a few rounds of laser skirmish. Hand-to-hand combat is also out of the question, for a good reason: he sucks at it. If it comes down to a one-on-one fight, Ben will not be coming out of it easily.

Designated Number: Male student no. 069

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Designated Weapon: Paintball Gun (+40 paintballs)

Conclusion: B069 could be a serious contender, if he could only get his hands on a weapon he understood. Still, his wilderness experience should serve him well, and he may be able to put that paintball gun to creative use. Give us a show, B069—I know you can.

'The above biography is as written by Corrupt_Dropbear. No edits or alterations to the author's original work have been made.'

Evaluations
Handled by: CorruptDropbear

Kills: None

Killed By: Courtney Bradley

Collected Weapons: Paintball Gun (assigned weapon)

Allies: Jacob Charles, Sarah Atwell, Adrian Staib

Enemies: Simon Fletcher

Mid-game Evaluation:

Post-Game Evaluation:

Memorable Quotes:

Threads
The Past:
 * The One With The New Kid

Pre-Game:
 * Fencing...No, not that Kind
 * Could've Danced All Night
 * Prom Panic
 * Strike
 * Just Another Night
 * The Dance Must Go On!
 * School's Out Forever, Part One

V4:
 * Misty Mountain Hop
 * Intravenous Nightmare
 * Conquistador
 * So What Do We Do Now?
 * Wind in the Willow
 * That's a bout. Salute. Shake hands.

Your Thoughts
''Whether you were a fellow handler in SOTF or just an avid reader of the site, we'd like to know what you thought about Ben Powell. What did you like, or dislike, about the character? Let us know here!''


 * Pretty much a riot to write with and to read. Enjoyable. - Inky


 * It's kind of a shame Ben got stuck in a series of gigantic threads, because he had a pretty distinctive voice and a well-handled, if not quite groundbreaking, goal. There were a few rough spots where his thoughts could stand to tighten up, but you certainly can't fault Dropbear for the effort, and it was overall pretty good. Other than that, his death could have used a bit more buildup, but Ben was overall enjoyable and distinctive. - Rattlesnake
 * For all I whine about "Shut up, Brain!" it was at least original when Ben did it, and I think it was his distinctive voice that led to the thought being copied verbatim by so many other characters in V4 and V5 pregame. Ben was a fun, likable character. Of Drop's characters, he was my favorite, because he really felt like he had connections and a style and voice all his own. I agree with Rattle on the subject of huge confusing threads; without those, I think Ben could've gone a whole lot further and maybe even become a pretty big character. - MurderWeasel